


don't follow me (i'll end up in your arms)

by lethologicae



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drug Use, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Klaus Hargreeves-centric, M/M, Not Luther friendly, Suicidal Thoughts, Temporary Character Death, abotchalypse, love that for him
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-06-25 12:22:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19745689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lethologicae/pseuds/lethologicae
Summary: in which decisions are made, debts are paid, and the last of the hargreeves family secrets come to light.(or: the apocalypse is averted, but nobody seems to notice klaus slowly drowning.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this is my first fic and i'm trying my best. born out of my frustration that they didn't address klaus's issues in s1. hope you enjoy.
> 
> title is a play on slow dancing in the dark by joji.

Dave dies. 

Klaus is jolted back to reality in a flash of blue light. 

A man on the bus fixes the stranger near him with an odd look. He could have sworn the seat was empty a moment ago. The man now occupying it has a strange air about him, and looks, to put it lightly, like he's been through hell. He looks quite traumatized, and there is something off about him. He exudes a sense of wrongness, like he was dropped onto this bus by some cosmic power. Of course, the ratty clothes he's wearing doesn't help the case. The man puzzles it over for a moment, shakes his head, and goes back to his reading his paper. Kids these days, he thinks to himself. 

Meanwhile, Klaus shakes. 

He is in his stained fatigues, a relic of another era. Time spent out of time has changed him. He reeks of sweat and gore. He is out of place, an anomaly. The other people on the bus notice this. Klaus does not. 

He gazes ahead with blank eyes, clouded with all that was and could have been. Shaking hands stained with blood and dirt press into the leather case in his lap. His unseeing eyes blur as the scenery passes, and he aches.

A tear falls, and a heart breaks.

-

Klaus returns, and he falls apart.

He smashes the suitcase apart in the street, pulverizing it on the cobblestones and watching as it sparks and cracks. He sobs and screams, and curls up on the dirty pavement with his torn knuckles cradled close to his chest. He is shaking apart, a grief so harsh and so real that he feels a fire in his chest. His heart pounds and his eyes sting and he is back in a trench, trembling hands pressing against a fading heartbeat, eyes locked with a dying man. Helicopters whirr and machine guns echo and Klaus has finally been broken. 

-

The house welcomes him as it always has, with a looming shadow and dark windows. Klaus trudges up old stairs and slouches past abandoned bedrooms. He is so, so tired. Klaus sinks into a hot bath and wakes up in tepid pink water. He scrubs the mud from his legs, the dust from his face. He picks at the blood staining his hands and embedded under his nails. He cleans the memories and the pain from his skin as best he can. He claws at his shoulder blades and cries silently in an unforgiving world. Klaus shakes and shakes. 

When he finally rises out of the cold water, he tracks a trail of red across the floor. 

-

Klaus returns, and it's like he never left. His siblings greet him with exasperation and the same roll of their eyes as always. By this point, he's become used to it. Somehow, the dismissal still stings. 

Nobody mentions that he's been missing for days on end, and he doesn't bring it up either. 

Number Five corners him after his breakdown, demands to know where he's been. Klaus feels a spark of hope in his chest. Surely Number Five, the man out of time, would sympathize with him. He could help him, or at least do something to fix anything, any aspect of this hellish nightmare that the world has turned into. But as soon as he tells Five that he destroyed the case, the boy's face closes up again and he turns away and starts lecturing and Klaus can just hear the words in his head, stupid junkie Klaus who can't do anything right and never takes anything seriously, god what a fucking idiot, I never should have trusted him, what was he thinking shit what a mess, and he turns and walks away. The flippant sway of his hips is almost enough to hide how much his shoulders are shaking. Number Five turns, sees nobody there, and stops talking. Just before Klaus turns the corner, Five sees the way he's shaking, sees the scars and bruises on his body, and remembers bloody water and hands stained pink waving dreamily in the air minutes ago. Trembling.

Five watches Klaus slowly fall apart, and he does not call out. 

-

Klaus walks into a shabby veteran's bar and his eyes are immediately drawn to a picture on the wall. He moves closer and his eyes trace the frame. It's an old photo, its age shown through feathery folds and questionable stains. Klaus doesn't mind. He looks at his regiment, the men who had taken him in without questions, just with open arms and heartfelt brotherhood. Past Klaus is smiling so wide. Dave's arm is draped over his shoulders casually, but his expression is anything but. Klaus looks at the photo and touches it gently, reverently. His heart aches. 

His reverie is broken by an old, burly veteran manhandling him and picking a fight. The man is angry, and rightfully. Klaus can sympathize. As the man's voice grows in volume, Klaus wonders if he'll start a fight. He hopes so. He hopes that the other man's fists land a little too hard, that his kicks are a little too unrestrained. Klaus hopes, distantly, that he dies in this run-down bar, next to a decades-old picture of him and Dave, a shrine to the best and worst months of his life. 

Of course, Diego chooses that moment to bust in to diffuse the situation and drag him out. 

He's sitting in the car with Diego angrily questioning him.

"What were you thinking, Klaus? You could have been hurt! Why were you in there anyways?" Diego keeps up a steady stream of demands, and Klaus is so, so, tired. 

"Because I lost someone, okay?" Klaus's voice shakes, and he couldn't care less. "I lost someone," He repeats, softer. A tear traces its way down his cheek, and he does not look at Diego's face. 

Diego turns away silently. He starts the car, and they do not talk again.

-

Klaus returns, and so does Ben. Klaus knows there is something off about himself, and he knows that Ben knows this too. 

Ben was not with him in 1968. Probably because he wasn't born yet, but it's not like Klaus is an expert in time travel or mediumship. Those first few days, Klaus felt his absence like a hole in the chest, which is what ended up happening to Dave. Ha. Hard not to see the parallels in these situations, Klaus thinks. 

Ben speaks up after a few days of Klaus tiptoeing around him.

"So what's up with you lately?" Ben asks one night while Klaus is hanging out his bedroom window burning through cigarettes one by one. He's finally run out of drug money. He's not above selling his body to get his fix, hell, he's done it before, but he knows that if he resorted to prostitution again Ben would yell at him. But he would also feel guilty and unfaithful. His boyfriend may have died in his arms fifty years ago, but to Klaus it was last week and he just can't bring himself to do that.

Also, there's the small matter of being able to see Dave again if he gets sober. 

"I don't know what you're talking about." Klaus closes his eyes and exhales smoke.

"Don't bullshit me, Klaus. I know you went somewhere without me and I know that something happened to you. What's going on?" 

"Oh, you know, just the usual. World is ending in three days, that kind of stuff," Klaus says offhandedly. He stubs out his cigarette, sits down hard on his bed, and studiously avoids looking at Ben.

"Klaus, I know that something else happened, please, just tell me," Ben starts protesting and asking him more questions, always with the goddamn questions, and Klaus is just so, so tired.

"Okay, you know what, forget I said anything. It's dumb. It doesn't matter." Klaus kicks off his socks and tucks his legs under his duvet.

"Klaus, I-" Ben starts again, and Klaus just wants some peace. He reaches for his headphones, fingers just barely scrabbling against the wire. 

"Klaus, don't you dare," Ben says, but Klaus hooks his headphones and puts them on and blasts the loudest, most mind-numbing music he has. He pulls his shirt off and the covers up to his neck. Better. He can still see Ben's mouth moving and his arms gesturing, but it's not like Ben can do anything about it. 

Ben has resorted to jumping on the bed and waving his hands in Klaus's face, but that's a problem easily solved, unlike most of the other shit in his life.

Klaus closes his eyes and dreams of heavy metal, dust, and blood. 

-

More than a few times, Klaus catches Allison's eyes wandering to the dog tags at his sternum. Allison was the only one to acknowledge his rehab bracelet, before the shit hit the fan and everyone was suddenly too preoccupied to notice him. He wonders if she'll remark on them this time around. 

She never does. Klaus tries not to feel too lonely. How can he be, with dead people's voices screaming in his ears every waking hour?

-

In the end, it's Luther of all people to confront him about-- well, about most of the things that everyone else dismissed. Klaus can't bring himself to be too surprised. Luther was always bossy and authoritative, using his status as Number One to order the others around. He often acted like the responsible older brother who knew best, which was only disproved by the fact that they were all born at the same time, down to the second. Whatever. It wasn't Klaus's problem if Luther was obsessed with being a leader. 

Luther catches Klaus one murky afternoon. It was only a matter of time, Klaus supposes.

"Where have you been, Klaus?" Luther asks brusquely. Klaus isn't sure if it's better or worse than the gentle way Ben had approached the subject. 

Klaus half-lids his eyes and pastes on a careless expression. "Oh, you know. Around." He waves a hand vaguely in the air. 

"This isn't the time for your snide bullshit, Klaus." 

Klaus lets out a self-deprecating laugh. No doubt Luther would see it as anything but. Klaus has always hidden trauma and pain with a layer of airy negligence. He's an expert at dodging incriminating questions and annoying the shit out of people. This works wonders, except for the fact that nobody takes him seriously anymore. Speaking of.

"Oh, Luther," Klaus starts in a sing-song voice. He can see the steam starting to rise out of Number One's ears. "You know, we can't all be as big and strong," He punctuates this with a poke of Luther's bicep. Luther twitches. "As you, dear brother."

"Cut it out, Klaus. I know what you've been doing." 

Klaus flinches. His smile falters, but he's quick to regain his unaffected air. 

"Yes? What have I been doing, brother dearest?" Best to find out what he's talking about first before assuming anything and digging himself into a bigger hole.

"Those two assassins with the freaky masks, you were working with them, weren't you?" Before Klaus can even start on how incorrect that statement was, Luther pushes on. "I heard what happened to Diego's girlfriend. What did you do, Klaus?"

"Luther, what the fuck. I didn't do shit, okay?" Klaus is mad now. He drops the smile, drops the drugged up facade, and jams a finger into Luther's broad chest. "I didn't kill Diego’s cop girlfriend, first of all-"

Klaus is cut off when Luther grabs his throat and pushes him into the wall. His ribs press painfully into a cabinet corner. Klaus laughs again. Luther has always been quick to violence. His chuckle cuts off into a pathetic wheeze halfway through. Ah, right. The hand on his windpipe.

"Don't lie to me!" Luther is shouting now. Why isn't Klaus surprised? Luther's fingers tighten around his neck. Klaus claws at Luther's forearm. It's getting harder to breathe by the second. Vaguely, Klaus wonders if he'll die. He's been wondering that a lot, lately. 

Just as his vision begins to go black at the edges, he hears a startles voice.

"Luther? Luther!" It's Allison. Klaus doesn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

Luther let go of Klaus and turns. Klaus sags against the cabinet. He tries to catch his breath, but his heart is jackhammering in his chest. He shifts uprights, and his side aches. He's gonna have a nasty bruise tomorrow.

"Luther, what are you doing?" Allison turns the corner and catches sight of Klaus, slumped against the wall with one hand pressed to his side and another rubbing at the ring of bruises around his neck. "Klaus? Oh my god." She turns on Luther. He looks very small, which is no easy feat. 

"Allison, I can explain," Luther takes a step towards her, hands reaching out placatingly.

Allison backs away and Luther looks stricken. He reaches out for her but she bats his hand away. "Stop! What the fuck did you do, Luther? Look at him!" She gestures in Klaus's direction. Klaus hasn't moved.

"Allison," Luther says in his Number One voice, "This is between me and Klaus. Please don't interfere."

Klaus can tell that Allison's about to fight back, and he really can't deal with this right now. However, he knows that the consequences of slipping away to let them argue will be more detrimental than just getting this over with, so he straightens as best he can.

"Allison." He winces when his voice comes out hoarse. He coughs softly. Her eyes snap to him, and he sees a little bit of fear in her gaze. "It's fine. Let us talk."

"But-"

"Allison," Luther says softly. She doesn't even glance at him.

"It's okay." Klaus tries his best to be reassuring. His throat throbs, and he does not touch his neck. Allison still looks doubtful, so Klaus gives her his best Carefree Klaus grin. 

Allison gives Luther a warning glare. It's scary. Klaus and Luther watch her turn and walk around the corner. 

"Don't lie to me." Luther wastes no time in picking up where left off, albeit in a harsh whisper. There's no guarantee that Allison isn't waiting around the corner.

"I'm not fucking lying to you, okay?"

Luther grabs Klaus's wrist, hard enough to bruise. Luther has never been very mindful of his strength. 

"Let go of me, you-" Luther muffles Klaus with a hand over his mouth. He twists Klaus's wrist upward. 

"Oh yeah? Where'd you get these tattoos, Klaus? You owe us all an explanation." Nobody has noticed the tattoos until now. Sky Soldiers, emblazoned proudly on his bicep and a smaller, subtler tribute to Dave on his inner right wrist. The address of the bar they had first kissed in, one small neat line across pale skin and blue veins. 

Klaus twists his arm out of Luther's grasp. "I don't owe you anything," He sneers. He shoves past Luther and stalks away. He stops at the front doorway and turns. Luther is standing where Klaus left him, looking equal parts confused, angry, and disgusted. 

"I don't owe you anything," Klaus repeats, and slams the door behind him.

-

Klaus hasn't seen Vanya in a while. He wonders how she's doing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have no idea what i’m doing

Oh, Klaus thinks as he stares at a heavy metal container built for something very sinister, so there’s where Vanya is. His little sister, sweet and kind Vanya, is screaming and crying and pounding on the glass. The rhythm of her fists matches Klaus’s heavy heart, and her tears break it. 

Luther has never been very empathetic, but this is a line that should never have been crossed. The looks on his siblings’ faces match Klaus’s horrified expression. Allison is scribbling madly. She would be screaming her throat raw at Luther right now if she could, but she must resort to pen and paper. (And isn’t that an awful thought). She’s shoving her pad of paper into Luther’s face and Klaus catches glimpses of frantic capitals written over each other, but even with the best of her efforts, Luther looks straight ahead. His resolve steels. Allison drops her notebook and her head. 

Klaus stands and looks at Vanya, sees his own weary expression mirrored weakly in the glass, and he can’t help but think back to those training sessions with Dad. In his mind, he sees a young Klaus shaking, screaming, crying. Begging for the ghosts to leave, pleading to be let out.

He walks up to the container as Diego is cajoling Luther to no avail. Pogo stands in the doorway, looking resigned. Five looks unaffected. 

Vanya is screaming from inside, and it’s soundproofed so thoroughly that Klaus can barely make out the dull thud of her hands, but he looks at her and thinks that he can make out the words “Help me”, her lips forming words that nobody can hear. He looks at her, shoves down the part of him that wants to cry, and nods. 

Klaus sees her eyebrows raise and her tears fall, and he sees a tiny glimmer of hope in her big brown eyes. So he steps to the side and tugs on the giant wheel. As he expected, this yields no results. It’s not surprising. Klaus is literally a stick. 

His heart is jackhammering out of his chest and Klaus is this close to crying, but he weighs his options. 

1\. Keep trying to open the container. Stupid. Judging by his estimates, only Luther has the strength to turn that dumbfuck wheel. 

2\. Try to talk to Luther. Nope. Trying to put sense into him is like talking to a brick wall. 

3\. Try to slap some sense into him. Also stupid. Luther could crush his head in two seconds flat. And even if Klaus did manage to, say, gouge his eyes out or something, who would open the container then?

So Klaus slumps against the cool metal and prays for a miracle. 

His chest hurts and his eyeballs feel hot. He feels Vanya’s fists against the glass, and the vibration travels through his body. He squashes the tears down to the best of his ability, but one escaped anyways. It slides down his nose and drops onto the floor, and when he looks up, the room is empty and the door is closed. 

Vanya can’t see him from this angle, and yet he can still hear the last few halfhearted thuds of her hands. And then they stop. 

And Klaus is back in the mausoleum. 

And he is shaking and begging, and pressed up against cold, cold stone. The air smells like dirt and decay, and he screams. 

He shakes until blue light pierces his eyelids, and only then does he looks to see glowing fists and The Horror let loose in all his ghastly glory. 

Klaus gapes up at Ben, who seems to have recovered from his sudden manifestation and who winks back at Klaus. 

Glowing blue tentacles wrap around a thick iron wheel, and the door to Vanya’s cage slowly, slowly creaks open. 

Klaus stumbles and Ben blinks out of existence again. He’s looking down at one hand, the other one wrapped tightly around his stomach. Vanya tumbles out of the container and Klaus steps forward to catch her. She’s crying, blubbering and shaking in his arms. 

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she hiccups. “Please, I don’t know what happened, I just— I just got so angry, and I killed him, oh my God, I killed him, and—”

Klaus holds his sister, all skin and bone and huge, teary eyes, and he wonders how they got here. 

-

Somehow, through some miracle, they make it out of the Academy. Klaus walks familiar streets and alleys, one arm hooked around Vanya. Ben trails behind anxiously. Vanya has stopped sobbing, and is silent save for the occasional sniffle and cough. Klaus’s throat aches in sympathy. 

They make it to Vanya’s apartment. Klaus scrabbles for the spare keys on top of the doorframe. He’s been here before a few times, for a night after a thirty day rehab stint, or on mornings when he’s too high to remember where he is, only that it’s safe. Vanya always welcomed him, even when he hardly recognized her. 

Vanya sits down hard on the couch, and Klaus joins her. 

“Are your ribs okay?” He asks tentatively. Vanya looks at him, surprised. “You were wincing,” Klaus explained. “Was it Luther?”

“...Yeah. It’s okay. They’re just bruised.” 

Klaus doesn’t ask how she knows what bruised ribs feel like. 

They sit in silence for a while. Klaus crosses his legs and fidgets with the laces on his jeans. Vanya hunches over and clasps her hands together. 

Klaus fumbles with something to say, because he thinks that if he doesn’t, they may just sit here forever. 

“Uh,” He says, quite eloquently. Vanya jerks her head to look at him. He clears his throat. “Dad used to lock me up, too.”

He’s looking down at his lap, so he doesn’t see Vanya open her mouth and blink in surprise. 

“Why?” She asks.

“Ah, I was scared of the ghosts. He thought some time in the mausoleum would remedy that.” Klaus wouldn’t tell this story under normal circumstances, but he thinks that Vanya needs to hear it. “I’d cry for hours, and every time he opened the door, he would ask, ‘Number Four, have you overcome your fear?’ and I would beg him to let me out. You know what that fucker would say, every time? ‘Three more hours.’” He doesn’t bother with the accent. 

Klaus risks a sideways glance at Vanya. She’s sitting straighter, listening with rapt attention. 

He laughs a little. “You know, for the longest time I wished I was like you.” Vanya makes a small noise. “Normal. Because I wouldn’t have to go on missions, and Dad wouldn’t lock me up. Every day, I wished that I could be normal, because that way, I wouldn’t be able to see the ghosts.”

Klaus looks at Vanya again, longer, this time. He thinks he sees her shoulders loosen a bit, her eyes widen a fraction. 

What can he do but continue?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its been a fuckin while huh

Klaus crashes at Vanya’s place. He takes the couch.

They both studiously ignore the phone ringing over and over in its cradle.

Klaus doesn’t ask about Leonard, and in return, Vanya doesn’t ask about Dave. Ben flickers. 

-

Diego throws his hands up in frustration. The phone clatters back into its cradle. “I’ve tried every number I know. They’re not picking up!”

Luther looks two seconds away from punching a hole through the wall. Allison lays a hand onto his arm reassuringly. Luther flinches away, and her hand drops back to her side. 

“This is bullshit.” Five stands. “It’s been days, and we’re not dead yet. This isn’t my problem anymore.” He starts towards the doorway. 

Allison stomps her foot. “How can you say that? Whether you like it or not, we’re a family. You can’t just, just- decide that you’re done!”

Luther shakes his head. “Maybe he’s right, Allison. It’s not like they’re in immediate danger.” He pauses. “Besides, how do we know that Klaus isn’t just off shooting up in an alley again?”

Diego scoffs in disgust. “Wow,” He grins sarcastically. “Good old Number One. Loyal to the end. Oh, wait!” Allison purses her lips. 

Diego heads towards the front door. He catches a glimpse of Five shifting uncomfortably. “I’m gonna go look for our siblings, because apparently some of us don’t care if they live or die.”

“Hey now, that’s a little harsh,” Luther starts, but cuts himself off when Allison falls into step beside Diego. 

“He’s right. You guys need to re-evaluate your priorities.” She sighs. “Sometimes I wonder whether you really care about our family at all.”

-

Diego and Allison drive to Vanya’s apartment in silence. Diego’s grip on the wheel is tight, scarred knuckles standing out stark white. 

-

Klaus and Vanya decide to go out for donuts. They walk, chatting animatedly, because Vanya doesn’t own a car and the last time Klaus drove, roughly a dozen people had a stroke. He is unclear on the number of fatalities. 

-

And in this way, Klaus and Vanya coexist in their own little bubble while the other siblings scramble to find them. Their efforts wane as time goes on and they realize that there is no immediate danger, and likewise, Vanya grows more confident and empathetic every day. 

Hence, the day comes when she no longer needs Klaus. 

Klaus isn’t oblivious. Vanya starts making friends, having them over. She laughs more often now. Her control is improved, so much that she can set down a tossed wine glass using only her mind. And yet, still, Klaus sleeps on her couch, day after day. 

She must be tired of him by now, he reasons. They’ve pushed past his three-week record of staying with another person, and they don’t talk nearly as much now. He has nothing left to do for her, so he leaves.

-

Friday finds him in a dirty alley, yelling at thin air.

“Fuck off, Ben!”

“Klaus-“

“I don’t need you fucking breathing down my neck all the time! Jesus!”

“I don’t want you to do something you’ll regret,” Ben counters. In the back of Klaus’s mind, he knows that there’s good reason for Ben to be worried. 

Klaus doesn’t really care anymore. 

He’s been sleeping on park benches and under bridges for the past few days. It’s vaguely reminiscent of the days before Reginald’s funeral, but hollower. His heart hurts more, these days. Klaus misses the euphoria coursing through his veins. 

And so it goes. 

“Klaus, please, don’t do this,” Ben pleads. 

Klaus studiously ignores him and focuses on counting out pickpocketed money. He palms a bag of pale pills, a familiar feeling that makes his heart jackrabbit and dread curl in his stomach. 

“Nice to have ya back, Klaus. Where ya been?”

“Oh, around.” Klaus waves vaguely. “Y’know.”

His dealer nods sagely and claps him on the shoulder. “Great doing business with ya, bud. Stay safe out there.”

Klaus nods, already turning away. He doesn’t take the words to heart. 

-

Klaus stares up at a little girl with long, dark hair. 

She sighs. “Why are you here?”

Klaus blinks. “Uh? I… don’t actually know.”

She stomps her foot petulantly. “Leave.”

Klaus giggles. “Would if I could, lady. So, are you not gonna kick me out this time? Am I finally gonna stay dead?”

She fixes him with a piercing stare. “When are you going to figure it out, Klaus?”

“Figure what out?”

“You can’t stay here, Klaus.”

“...Why?” Klaus sits up. 

“You really should have figured it out by now. You can’t die, Klaus,” The girl looks genuinely remorseful. 

“What?”

“Not for now, anyways. Not for a long time.”

Klaus stumbles to his feet. In the corner of his eye, he sees a little house with bright windows lined with lavender. 

“Klaus, you have to leave.”

Klaus’s gaze snaps back to her. “Wait,” he says, “I-“

He takes a small step forwards, and the world goes dark. 

-

Klaus wakes up to a pool of blood and vomit, a massive stomach ache, and a pair of worried, slightly transparent eyes inches from his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’m probably gonna start uploading shorter chapters from here on out like -1k?? hopefully thats ok

**Author's Note:**

> i have most of chapter 2 written, but updates are going to be erratic. sorry. i'll try for weekly!
> 
> if you liked it, leave a comment!


End file.
